A Place of Hiding
by Carryon14
Summary: He was too busy to be bothered, and she too used to the hiding, until news came from the East. Eomer and Lothiriel, and their most unlikely honeymoon. [Discontinued, sorry!]
1. Good year and Bad News

**Chapter 1: Good year and Bad News**

It had been a good year in Rohan; given everything that's happened, it had been a damned good year. 

Gone were the barren fields, the smoking ruins marring the countryside. Once more the air was clear in the high lands; the drought had flown with autumn, and when spring came around again there also came the children, leaping out from their mothers' homes to fill the air with laughter. 

Much of this, thanks to the dead. Much, thanks to the living, thanks to the king.

The elders of the Council – what was left of them – had known him as the wild-haired youth, Third Marshall, the beetle-browed one fuming in the corner while Theoden had compromised with Isengard. They knew him from stories; for tales of what had transpired on the Pelennor fields had by now trickled among the folk of Rohan. The king himself never refuted them, though they spoke of a winged dragon descending, sputtering fire and ash, and of how Eowyn had cleaved its head in twain. They spoke of how Eomer, believing his sister dead, had risen like fire from the dry ground, gathering dead men to charge down terrible beasts of the eastern lands. They also spoke of how these beasts, these mountains of transmuted flesh and teeth and claws, had been overrun, razed by the molten wrath of Eomer, drowned in the deluge of his sorrow. 

So if the Council was a little wary of him, it was perhaps not without reason. 

But Eomer was too lively, too active to be confined to myths – indeed, the whole of Edoras came to bear witness as, on the third day of his rule, Eomer King called for the complete restoration of the Meduseld. Old tapestries were dragged out into the light and beat clear of decades' dust; the furniture scraped around from floor to attic, the hall mopped until it was spotless. And they watched their formidable king falling over himself in a fit of sneezes, trying to beat Eorl's tapestry by hand.

He climbed roofs and nailed shoes on the horses, carried beams and raised barns with the rest of them. But by now the Council had regained its bearings, and told him under no uncertain terms that legends made better kings than did carpenters, and they convinced him, after much roaring and flashing of his golden eyes and large, white teeth, that his job as to stay put and issue the orders, not carry them out.

Good king or no, certain appearances must be kept up. 

They tolerated his dalliances and affairs, which were infrequent and kept well from the people's eye, for they knew he would do his duty and marry the princess of Dol Amroth. 

And so he had done.

The wedding was held to great carousing on one of the coldest nights of the year, with Eomer resplendent, cleaned until he shone as brightly as the gold of his crown. But his bride, a dark-haired little thing, shivered and trembled all through the ceremony. They saw how she had winced, draining the mead from the marriage cup; heard her voice tremble, repeating her vows. 

She was pretty enough, granted; but many hoped Eomer would get an heir out of her soon, for she did not look like the kind to last long here; too small, too frail, too frightened. It too was said that she had elven blood. And in Rohan the elves had been known as sorcerers longer than they were known as friends.

* * *

"The King! I must speak with the King!" cried the messenger, his eyes wild. Stained robes hung tatters around his feet, and he exuded so foul an odor that the doorwardens cursed in his wake. 

Eomer admitted him immediately; and after a long swallow of mead Anwyn – they recognized him now, under the layers of grime – began his tale.

He had been sent with two others far into the east, beyond the Sea of Rhun where dwelt the wildmen, to seek the remnants of shadow. All was quiet, and peaceful; the orc tracks faded, untraceable, and a return was planned, with no news of trouble stirring.

Then they happened upon a plague-struck village of Wildmen. 

Young and old, men and women – children – all felled to their beds, covered in red pustules that oozed and bled, moaning half-formed words to the family that cared for them in vain. 

From the east, bands of wild-men flew from the hand of the plague that seemed to stretch out with the fingers of morning. They found ghost camps; still bodies lay half out of their tents in putrefaction, circled around the camp fires that had burned out long ago. 

That was when the other two messengers felt the fever coming on. Anwyn left them that night, and ran Westward. 

"Beowar and Granulf are dead," Anwyn turned fierce eyes to the equally intent gaze of his king, "we have no resistance against this. The wildmen who have not died are running with the rest of their kin – they have no horses, but they are running as fast as they can, and the first place they will come to is Northern Ithilien."

They were silent. 

A dragon could be slain, even monsters struck down.

But a plague.

And too soon, too soon – they had only come to know peace, and a small taste, at that. 

"How does it spread?" said Eomer.

The messenger shook his head, "we don't know, sir; by air, by water – we don't know."

Then the king was suddenly afoot again. Servants were called for to provide the messenger with food, a bath, and rest. Eomer was pacing as the man took his exit, to and fro; back around he came, turning his amber glare at them.

"Councilors?"

They broke out with suggestions.

"The wildmen must be stopped before they reach Gondor and Rohan. Send archers, kill them all."

"Surely there was no cause for violence. Those healthy enough to reach Ithilien are not sickly – they should be left to stay."

"The wildmen of the mountains had caused enough trouble for Rohan, and now you ask Gondor to invite them into Ithilien?"

"Not to mention," said Eomer, "that we don't know what began this plague in the first place."

They turned to him in surprise.

"You think, Milord, that this could be a device of the Enemy?"

His booted heels clicked on the stones as he prowled. 

"No," he said, finally, "or they would have used it during the war. A plague would be a thousand times more effective than sendings of orcs and battle-towers. This is something new; new to the wild-men, or else they would not flee – and thus new to Middle-earth."

"Milord Eomer," Milaed, the historian of Rohan, blinked his rheumy eyes, "I have heard ancient lore of pale men who live past a thousand leagues from the blue sea of Rhun, who venture not in the light, so white their skin. But if they exist, and have come into the western lands…"

Eomer stopped before his throne. 

"Pale men or not, we have no time to lose. The Prince of Ithilien must be notified immediately, as it will come to him first."

"Yes, sir." 

Eomer turned back to them.

"And Elessar of Gondor, too, must know of this. I will ride to Minas Tirith."

Talan, the scribe, spoke up, "Milord, the Lord Elessar had sent word that he is in Dol Amroth, to contract with the Haradrim."

"Damn," Eomer stopped mid-step, "that is three days' further journey from the white city."

A silence, while their young king frowned.

"I wonder," he resumed pacing at a dizzying speed, "Is there not a path through the mountains? It would save precious time, and we have little of that as it is. Grimund, what do you know?"

"Milord," said the surveyor of Rohan, "take care – you are in great haste, but the only path through the mountains is the Path of the Dead, and Lord Elessar alone knew that route. There is no way across the crags of the Ered Nimrais. Your only choice is to ride around the mountains."

But before Eomer could curse again, someone spoke from behind him.

"I know of a way," said Lothiriel. 


	2. A Way and a Word

A/N: Liberties taken with geography, and apologies to JRRT, for trampling the wildflowers. But the Medulseld in spring was too pretty to resist**  
**

* * *

**Chapter 2: A Way and a Word**

There was only a few seconds' pause between her words and when they moved again, but it was an abyss of silence.

There was only a few seconds' pause between her words and when they moved again, but it was abyss of silence. Almost comic, really, the way their mouths hung. But it truly through no fault of theirs that half the council never heard her speak all these months.

Lothiriel drew up; the air felt cool against her flushed face, and the crown pressed into her temples with a dull throb. She was suddenly aware of her gown – the skirts were very heavy, she thought, as she made her way down the dais – slowly, deliberately, and carefully. 

It would not do to show fear, this she knew, not when the moment worked to her advantage. She was yet a mystery – a foreigner, a rare beast. One wrong word, one sign of fear and the whole illusion would be shattered; but here, now, as she took her second step, and third down the dais, she experienced the surprising, and wholly new feel of power, and hid her trembling hands in the blue velvet of her skirt.

Straw-colored giants stared at her, the hall a single, steady gaze. The invisible strings that wove them together yielded warily before her as she approached the great table. 

"Here," Lothiriel set her finger firmly down on the dot that read "Edoras."

She breathed deep. 

"We ride southeast across the foot of the White Mountains until here," the vellum map was smooth under her finger, "where a stream breaks through the foothills, flowing from runoff of high peaks. Our path begins a little more than a league southward of the water, and climbs up like so into the valleys of the Ered Nimrais proper, and winds through, like so."

She traced a pattern, zigzagging through the inky peaks of the mountain range.

"We converge westward until we meet the mouth of the spring at the final peak, and thence across the treeline which looks out over the western sea, and down a path following the western runoff there will take us down into the fields of Lamedon. From there our way is clear, following the river Ringlo, which flows through the plains of Lamedon to the mouth of Edhelhond, and then around the harbor to Dol Amroth."

Eomer was there – before her – she had not noticed him move. 

"How many days?" He asked.

"The whole journey in six days, no less," she replied, calmly.

His eyes flickered to her, and back to the map. There was a frown in it. 

"Only if there's no trouble up in the mountains, Milord."

They turned to Grimund. His long blue eyes did not look to Eomer, though he had addressed himself to the king; they fell on her instead, narrowed in crystalline assessment, showing nothing but distrust. 

She hoped they would not take her flush for a sign of fear. 

A familiar voice said, "Milord, I was raised at the borders of the Ered Nimrais; and the lady – that is, the queen – has a point," the speaker was a youngish man, flaxen hair tied back with a leather cord, "The mountains are not so steep close to the Firen wood. We should do well, staying below the treeline."

Aldhelm. He was the messenger that arrived breathless in the white steps of her home to deliver the fateful invitation that in the end had put a crown upon her head.

Eomer had turned to her, again. Lothiriel forced herself to look on him coolly, levelly. 

"And you have walked them yourself?"

She nodded, but had to remember the words.

"Yes, milord." 

"Often?"

"Thrice, milord." 

"What for?"

"I followed the healer-gardeners of Lossarnach and Lamedon."

Twice; and the third time she had gone alone. But that was not the question. 

"Very well," Eomer said, surprising her, surprising them all, "this news cannot be delayed; my lady will guide us to where Elessar deals with the Haradrim in Dol Amroth. Aldhelm, Grimund, you two will accompany my lady and myself at first light; see that the rest is arranged."

"Sir."

And so it was decided.

Too rash, some councilors thought, and they argued. She was made to draw out the route, verify the conditions – the cold, the rain, sources of water, animals, vegetation, shelters and weather changes, along with other possible dangers – and recite the road markers under intent scrutiny. 

They did not trust her; nor should they, perhaps, but a strange lightness filled her with words, and she spoke all that she knew, for she was in earnest now – more than ever – even if she had been here only as the foreign bride, the girl-queen, the silent one.

* * *

Eomer sought for her in the gardens, and found her weeding the kale patch. It was reassuring, to him, seeing her there. Only so many surprises could he take in a day. 

This was her world, and here he was the intruder. Large and coarse he stood among the narrow rows of rhubarb, cabbage and carrots. The zinnias smiled blithely at his discomfort from their cozy little bed across the way; and not to forget the tomatoes, holding dropping arms in their wicker cages. She had brought them expressly, in three large boxes of dark, heavy Dol Amrothian soil, along with the rest of her trousseau. 

Eomer clasped his hands around his back and cleared his throat.

"Milady."

She turned; hazel eyes, large and round like a deer's, trained themselves hesitantly on him as she stood slowly, brushing her dirty hands off unthinkingly on her dress – then, dropping a curtsey. 

"Milord."

Her eyes were slow to rise and meet his, and when they did he noticed she seemed to have trouble looking at him again. That much, at least, was familiar. It was almost unnerving, the way she had stared him hard in the eyes today, before the councilors. 

"Regarding our journey," he began. 

She made an agitated gesture with her fingers.

"Milord, I am in truth about the paths through the mountains," her eyes were trained on the ground, her words tumbling over one another, the gestures of a shy mouse once more, "thrice is not often enough to be a guide, I know, but I had recorded the markers so I would not be lost. I will not lead you astray." 

"I do not doubt you," he said, mildly.

Though that was not entirely true. 

The truth was that she was still as a stranger to him; though it was half a year now, since they were married.

The household had taken to her readily enough, for she was kind to the servants; but the household had always run smoothly, as far back as he could remember. And as far as Eomer knew, his new wife had few friends in the court, among those considered to hold sway in Edoras. 

He had attributed this, along with her other shortcomings, to her poor command of their language. Indeed, when the councilors addressed her, if they addressed her at all – it had always been in Westron; he too, spoke to her in her tongue when they were alone. The endless meetings she had endured, a blank look obliterating the expressions of her telling face, and he had pitied her there in the stiff chair among those who spoke in foreign tongues. But apparently she did understand after all. She had understood all along.

A nagging feeling tugged at him, somewhere between guilt and alarm. 

He cleared his throat.

"We honor our shield-maidens as highly as any rider in the Riddermark. The council and I are grateful to you for your assistance, Milady."

She looked down at her hands, and mumbled.

"Milady?"

"I said, I'm not exactly a shield-_maiden_ any longer," the flush crept up in her cheeks.

"Ah," said Eomer. 

Something told him that laughter would not be wise.

A beat.

"Nonetheless, I trust you know best the way to your own city," he continued briskly, "I merely came to inform you of the special conditions regarding our accommodations – ah – as we travel."

She looked at him with confusion, and Eomer sighed. 

He was never good at hedging the topic; neither could he make a show of unwrapping unpleasantness like it was, in fact, a gift. He got to the point.

"A bedroll and some provisions are all that a horse can carry, to cover good distance each day. That means only cloaks for shelter, waybread for food, and the rock and earth for our bed. There will be no chance to bathe – only a quick dash from a stream, and even less in the way of conversation and niceties. And it will be cold. All in all, not a comfortable trip, Lady. I hope you did not expect otherwise."

He saw her countenance flush crimson, again, but then her eyes flashed steel at him from under the long lashes, and Eomer was disconcerted by the sudden realization that the lady was no longer embarrassed but_angry_. Indeed, he had thought the only two emotions exhibited by his wife were to be embarrassment and fear; and this, this was something else. 

She had yet said nothing, only cast down her gaze again – to shield him from her wrath? – and unable to help himself he inquired, as he would poke at a shadow he suspected might be a dragon, "Have I given you offense, milady?"

He looked closely this time, and could see the crook of her brown before her frown faded entirely. The color still stood high on her skin, and her eyes flashed thunder, but her face was carefully neutral, rigidly blank. 

Belatedly he recognized the expression – the one he had so often seen during council meetings – as her mask. 

"Not at all, Milord," she bent down, averting her eyes, and tugged on a small weed growing between the cauliflowers, "I understand completely."

The frustration, tinged with appalled astonishment, that flowed through his veins was another surprise; for he did care that she had so forcefully trodden on her anger, smothered it beneath the cool stone façade of her chilly ancestors. She would not be Lothiriel, without her elven blood, her high lineage, and her silences.

And he would not be Eomer, if he did not goad her just a little further.

"In fact," he said, carefully, in Rohirric, "I am thankful for the journey. It was a custom here, before the war, for the newly married king and queen to make a journey together in the weeks following their marriage. It helps them to know each other's characters, I believe, and builds the foundations of a strong nation. Lady, though our trip will be nothing so luxurious, I would be honored if you might consider this _our_ honeymoon."

The look in her eyes told him she understood every word. 


	3. Leaving Meduseld

A/N: Many thanks to those who reviewed and your comments; this is not a cheery fic! this is a serious fic! haha. Thanks, Lialathuveril, for reading my second stab at the whole business. I'll try to make it through this one; and maybe it'll end up cheerful too. Actually cheerful this time.

* * *

**Chapter 3: Leaving Meduseld**

_Honeymoon._ Lothiriel fumed as she paced the length of her chamber, unsure whether the strange, tight feeling in her face was a desire to laugh or cry. Frowns and flat words were all that she expected from him; it had been all she heard from him, then to be set upon by this – what was this, his sense of humor? It was as if she had stood to one side of him all this time, seen one plane of his profile – prosaic, practical, business-like, and suddenly – this. It surprised her, it displeased her; but at the same time Lothiriel could not help but feel the corner of her mouth kick up in a reluctant smile.

Though his words – and he had never lied to her before – it was utter rubbish! That he respected her, as one would carefully, politely respect a dignitary from a foreign land, she had little doubt. That he held affection for her, as a man might for a woman who shared his bed, she did not doubt at all. But that he thought of their marriage as one between mutually cherishing partners, who would take a honeymoon to know one another better – that was laughable.

Lothiriel had watched as his confident gait took him farther from her, the broad shouldered, golden-haired ruffian – until he disappeared around the corner. She had gone back to weeding with a fervor, almost pulling up the rhubarb seedlings in her anger, after which she abandoned the effort with a huff and went back to her room to pack.

At least he took her view on the matters, she thought, retrieving her thick winter cloak. At least the awful man had not told her flat-out that married women did not trample about the countryside like some dirty messenger; though perhaps that did not totally excuse him. It might only be his ill-bred nature speaking. Or perhaps he merely expected it of her, Rohirrim or not, to live up to the reputation of the last Shield-maiden.

But she, Lothiriel of Dol Amroth, was nothing like Eowyn of Rohan, White Lady of Ithilien, the Lady of the Shield-arm. She had not fought during the war, she had hid, and had even done that quite poorly. She was not off on a quest to slay the Witch-King of Angmar; she was merely picking her way through mountains she had known since birth, and Valar knew how astounded every one would be if she actually managed to keep her promise, and lead them through without losing her way.

Not a hero, I.

She wound a length of rope around her blanket roll, pulling the knots tight. Sailing men's knots, that her brothers had taught her.

Lions they were, the lot of them. If this land that she now lived in – these meadows and hills of fearless men and women and children, of horse-masters and shield-maidens had taught her anything, it was not to show fear even if she were drowning in it.

Now if only there weren't so much she was frightened of.

Yet fear was not the right word. She was discomfited here, as if she didn't fit entirely into her skin, as if she had been trying to grow a new face, a braver one, a Rohirric Lothiriel – and found the mask did not quite stay on, but slipped and went to pieces at the slightest disturbance – at the appraising glances that without exception ended in a skeptical look, and then cool dismissal, or a shake of the head, which was no better; at their boisterous banter, their joyous carousing which she had always watched from a distance, untouched and untouchable by the circle of their mirth.

And her husband, the king, Eomer – so many names he had, so many roles, and the faces each different yet the same. She was frightened of him, not in a way of fear, but an uttermost discomfiture came upon her whenever she thought of him, her thoughts as overcome by his passionate strangeness in the night as they were filled by his perfunctory aloofness of the day. His endless corrections, the little furrow that notched itself in his brow only when she came near, all these things and more flooded her head, whenever she saw him, and then she was merely embarrassed – not a lady, a shield-maiden, or even a well-behaved foreign visitor; she would blush like a schoolgirl.

Lothiriel folded one of her green gowns, and slipped it into the bundle.

"Oh, milady, you cannot take only one dress with you!"

It was Harah, breezing through the door in a flurry of skirts and scuffles, her wavy hair bouncing with each step.

"You are going back home – you cannot see your Princes in that!" she gestured more emphatically at the grey gardening gown with Lothiriel still wore, with an air of great despair.

The "Princes" were what Harah has been calling Amrothos, Elphir, and Erchirion, ever since Lothiriel had told her she had brothers. _Are they handsome like you are pretty, Milady? Are they very tall, and speak to the sorcerer elves in the woods, like in the stories?_

The thought of home brought a strange, closed feeling to her chest, as Lothiriel waved Harah away.

"Harah, I have another dress; it will be enough."

"Nonsense! They will take one look at you and think, oh they are treating her very badly indeed in Rohan – she's so skinny, and wears these awful old gowns! Don't listen to them, Milady, the men are too heavy for their horses, they cannot take extra things with them, but you are a lady – they might tell you to pack nothing but they all expect you to look as if you to had your whole wardrobe at the ready. Men!"

Such logic could not be refuted. In the end Lothiriel was persuaded to bring along two more dresses, one of them that was much fancier, tucked in the white bundle with a pair of satin slippers; an extra blanket, for the cold, and two more pairs of heavy, woolen socks.

"Nothing worse than wet feet," said Harah, incontrovertibly.

A good friend, Lothiriel thought, smiling at her irrepressible maid.

One of a few.

Harah bustled out, and in again, with some tea and bread.

In fact there was nothing Lothiriel wanted more than a nap, a rest. Nervous exhaustion from her little speech earlier in the day was wearing at her, wheedling for a reprieve. But those were childish thoughts, and there was much to be done before she could depart from Edoras.

Words for the maids to be sent, instructing them to air and clean the King's rooms while they were gone; afternoon visits with the court ladies to cancel (an indisposition of the womanly nature as her excuse, for the court was not to know of the true reason for her absence). The kitchens were to be alerted that trays were not to be taken up with Eomer's usual nighttime tea (strong black stuff mixed with more than a little mead, the worst sort of atrocity which only he could stomach) for the next fortnight. The Great Hall should be swept, while they were at it, the rushes replaced and the place doused with soap and lye and water. She consulted with the housekeeper – a rather drab title for one who kept the Meduseld in working condition – a stout matron named Elewine, who assured her that all that would be taken care of and more. Indeed, Lothiriel had the feeling that even if she did not make any instructions, _all of that and more_ would have been taken care of anyway.

Except, of course, for her garden.

She left painstaking directions concerning its upkeep; the watering (between the rows of seedlings and not directly on top!) and weeding (this is a weed; this is a seedling!). She even bent to demonstrate some of the latter herself, to the impassive gardener with the long braided beard. He at least seemed to understand her now, after Harah had spent every free hour teaching her to speak the notoriously difficult Rohirric tongue.

Lothiriel smiled, and rose from her crouch by the wicker cages. The tomatoes were ripening well; they were already almost the size of her fist and were growing still.

Lightheadedness assailed her, and she had to put a hand on the fence while the dark spots cleared from her eyes.

It was sunset, she realized suddenly, as the sky opened wide above her, rising endless and blue to where the stars shone, as it sometimes did here in Rohan. Brilliant streaks fell behind the western mountains, fading with a softness, a tenderness that was yet at once strong, glorious. Lothiriel cast one last glance over the gold brown meadows as the shadows drew long, and headed inside.

The preparations were finished, and dinner was waiting.


	4. Three Riders and a Fishwife

**A/N**: Sorry, JRRT! and on with the story**  
**

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* * *

Chapter 4: Three Riders and a Fishwife**

Eomer woke before the dawn, in silence; yawning he felt for her, only to find cooling, rumpled sheets beside him– as he had every morning for the last six months. He ignored the stab of annoyance and rose swiftly. 

Tunic and trousers pulled on in a soft scuffle of cloth; a thin woven hauberk fell clattering, then the outer coat; boots laced, certain and snug, just below the knee. It was a routine he had gone through a thousand times in the dark with his eyes barely open and every voice in his head protesting the rude mechanics of waking. And in those regretful seconds before alertness rose, Eomer missed waking in a woman's softness. 

It had been a good time for marriage, so all the councilors had said. And she had denied him nothing, from the very beginning.

* * *

The shadows of four riders skimmed across the wavering meadow, sped along by the first light of Anar. 

Eomer breathed deep the dewy air; the waves of clouds made him think of the ocean as first he had glimpsed it, months ago.

It had been sunset, and he had Aragorn had ridden the day long, but they did not slacken pace as the curving dome of the Citadel of Dol Amroth came into view, smooth as an eggshell. Through the stone streets they clattered in the fading yellow light, as laughter rose and overflowed as from a deep well; all the while the horses stretched their necks and huffed and bore them over the final hill into a view of the Bay of Balfalas.

And there, the ocean. 

It seemed that their long flight had all been for this, this last rush over the final veil obscuring his view, dispersed now like the morning fog, and the glistening, wavering field, dazzling, draining him and filling him with the languor as of breath and life eternal. 

And since then he saw it everywhere, the ocean; in the whorls of white upon the sky, in the spinning of the stars, in the blowing long grass of Rohan, the wild hair and the eyes of his bride.

Elven eyes, he had been told by the envoys, eyes like storm and sun at once upon a meadow, and he had not believed in any such nonsense – for eyes were eyes and hers were a speckled bluish-hazel that looked grey at a distance. More often she did not look at him, but stared down, away, somewhere else. 

Eomer glanced up and saw her riding swift upon her mare, her cloak billowing with the wind as she bent to the withers of the roan. He urged Firefoot, who snorted and leapt forward, nostrils trailing steam in the chill morning, until he was alongside Lothiriel.

A glimpse was all he needed to see that she smiled, grinned, bared her teeth despite the cold in triumph. Then she took note of him, and the smile faded as she tilted her head to look upon him. But in those eyes he beheld the memory of a wonder unfading, the wonder of freedom, of the sea. And he smiled back at her for the memory of the sea they shared – and inclined his head, in good morning.

For a moment her face clouded in a frown. But then to Eomer's great satisfaction, she smiled back at him, a child's smile and a woman's smile, so full of it joy it burst from the stillness of her face as the sun springs from the eastern mountains at the touch morning, rounded with trust, replete with the knowledge of safety. 

Such a sight she was.

Eomer nodded again, more brusquely, so astonished by the beauty of it that he would have been unable to speak even if he wished, and fell back.

* * *

They covered good distance that morning; the horses had been trammeled too long, relieved only with their occasional trot through the valley, and now stretching their legs bore all four of them swiftly across the foothills of the White Mountains. Summer breathed motion into the low lying shrubs that mottled their path; all along the foothills wildflowers grew amidst the long grass, bowing and nodding in the wind, bearing fanciful names that Eomer did not know. They stopped for a rest and a quick meal by the curve of a greening hill, then set off again, sure as the diving gull across the sunlit seas, all the way until the dark. 

It was finally too dim to ride safely, and they made camp by a bend of the stream that wound down from peaks, and set to unpacking for the night. Aldhelm bent to start a fire while Grimund gathered sticks and what wood he could find. Eomer watched as Lothiriel moved, stiffly it seemed, to the banks of the stream, bending to something in the water. He made a note to check on her later, for no doubt she was unused to such strenuous journeying; but for the moment he cleared an area for sleep, evening the ground and sending stray sticks to Aldhelm for kindling. 

They camped within a mile of the nearest village. This part of the Eastfold stood close enough to the mountains to have been spared the worst of the attacks which had ravaged the Wold, and the folk here were gentle; farmers and huntsmen stocked with mulled wine and a ready story for a cold winter's eve. If he shielded his eyes against the light behind him, Eomer could make out windows to the nearest houses, orange flickering candles against the night. 

The fire was going well now, as Grimund had discovered a cache of dry driftwood. Aldhelm was poking at it with a long branch, stacking a split piece on top of another, then frowning and reaching into the fire to readjust the logs, jumping back every so often when he got too close to the flame. Eomer stepped closer to the crackling, spitting bonfire.

"Apple," he said, recognizing the sweet, smoky aftertaste in the air. 

A shadow fell across him, and he looked up to see Lothiriel – her hair wet and her face dripping with water – holding a line heavy with three enormous silver-scaled river trout. 

At his speechless look, she gave him a small, self-satisfied smile. It turned, soon enough, into a hiss of surprise as one of the inert fish – she must have stunned them with a rock – began to flop again, and the whole set of them tumbled from her hands as the lone survivor continued its pathetic flailing, beating the dusty ground beside the fire. Eomer watched, even more bemused, as Lothiriel, with the great ruthless aplomb of a seasoned warrior – or a weathered fisherwoman – picked up the nearest thing on hand, an iron skillet which he had expressly told her not to pack, and gave a resounding whack to the head of the struggling fish. It moved once more, and lay still.

Satisfied, she sat back, and slipping a small knife out of its sheath at her belt, began the methodic process of gutting and cleaning the fish, plucking out the innards all together in one smooth motion, and tossing them into a little pit she had dug in the sand. A swipe of the curved little blade, scraping from the tail to the head, and the scales lay in a huddle like molted skin. Eomer noted vaguely that his men too had gathered around to watch his wife make short work of dismembering her night's catch.

She glanced up quickly, then down again, in embarrassment, and mumbled in her sand-soft voice, "dinner will be ready in a minute."

For a time there was only the silence of the wild, and the soft sizzling of fish on the skillet, which somehow had become the main attraction of the evening, they all four of them stared, too aware of the hunger which had been building the whole day until it roared. Then the silence scramble as they tried to find something to make up for the lack of plates, and when leaves of appropriate size had been discovered, there were only the quiet, satisfied sounds of a meal.

Eomer wondered, a little later, while he attempted to not to seem too eager at devouring his portion – trout seasoned with rosemary and salted to perfection – how her mare had been able to keep up, carrying as it did a small set of spices _and_ the skillet. But that, truly, was neither here nor there. 

Aldhelm was the first to remember his manners, as usual. 

"Heartfelt thanks, milady," said Rohan's courier with his tongue of silver, "for an incomparable meal; I doubt any of us have experience such hospitality in the wild."

The girl blushed up to the roots of her hair; a sight which never ceased to annoy Eomer.

Grimund, true to his name, merely grunted, and nodded something like acknowledgement at Lothiriel. 

Good man, Eomer thought.

She seemed to take that better, nodding back at him with a girlish fervor, and suddenly Eomer realized it was his turn to give a compliment to the lady. 

She would have to settle for a question, he thought.

"Will you show me how you caught them, lady?"

But Lothiriel seemed more pleased with that, as well. She cracked a smile at him, the same smug grin she had worn earlier, stood, and motioned for him to follow along. He nodded to Grimund, who nodded back, sent a repressive glare at Aldhelm, who grinned at him, and left the circle of the fire after the cloaked shadow that drifted a little ways before him, holding what seemed like a length of silver rope by the dim light of the moon.

Lothiriel half-knelt by the stream, which seemed nothing more than a wayward swath of reflected light in the deepening dark, and glanced back at him. Eomer took another step closer, enough to see the white glint of her eyes as she looked away, and then moved to sit by her, slowly, feeling tentative for a reason he could not name.

She held the rope out to him, a strange contraption of invisible stings, tied knots, with floating attachments of jagged iron hooks and shining bits of silver.

"The metal catches the light as the current passes," she explained as he examined it, eyes flickering to his face, then down, "it looks like a struggling fish from the depths, and prompts them to bite, though a little work, as bait, always helps. But I've always hated killing earthworms. They're good for so much else."

He nodded, fingering the strangely shaped bits of metal, polishing them, feeling them bite a little into his thumb. 

She too, looked at the line between his hands, softness in her face.

"Certain things you have to pick up, living in Dol Amroth, even if you try not to. Be careful."

A small frown notched itself in her brow. Too late he noticed the thin slice of red now running across his thumb, and the sting.

"Ah." He frowned too, and stuck his finger inside his mouth, tasting the hard bite of metal mixed with his blood.

"Don't do that," she admonished, sharply, and tried to pull his hand away, but he resisted her, thumb stuck firmly in his mouth – the tang of blood fading already – and made incoherent noises of negation.

"Fine." she stood up in annoyance, and he could see the kick of her mouth warring with the frown on her brow, her countenance pitching on the precipice between amusement and anger. Eomer stood too, still nursing his finger.

"Is it very deep?" she asked, softly yet again.

Eomer heard in her voice (her words always a little too low for clarity, as if the tips of snagged on something) a resigned sadness, the wistfulness of one who had asked that same question many times before, all to the same noncommittal shrug – which he gave, in keeping with what was expected of him. 

She nodded, serious and grave, as if they no longer spoke about a cut on his finger, her eyes set – as always when she spoke to him – somewhere between his chin and his neck. 

Eomer was suddenly certain that he should say something. The sounds of night magnified as if a sphere had closed over the two of them, trapping them in a silence, with no words, and only a little air. 

Lothiriel bent down again, away from him, to secure one end of the line around the girth of a mossy log, and tied the other end to a rock, sinking it.

"For breakfast," she said. 

They walked back to camp.


	5. Keeping Watch

**Chapter 5: Keeping Watch**

Gasping. 

Darkness, and her heart, pounding.

Lothiriel sat up, her thoughts grasping at the faded edges of a dream, but it eluded her solid fingers, lost, dropped like a stone back into the black depths of memory. For a moment she thought she had cried out, but no, her throat was cool, and it was but a shadow in her mind. 

She smoothed back her hair, drenched in a cold sweat, clenched her hands, and made herself breathe deeply. Cold air swirled through her lungs and lapped at the perspiration on her face as she counted to ten, focused entirely on the numbers for she dared not lose even one. And when even her body's memory of the dream had faded, Lothiriel lay slowly back on her small pallet, tracing her hands over the worn cover of her bedding, scattering dewdrops. 

But she had little hope that sleep would return; it rarely did, this last year. 

She sat up, for good this time, and looked about her. The fire, banked by a low wall of earth, had died some time ago, the bits of curling ash stirring ghostlike in the wind. She looked across it, and met the eyes of Grimund, sitting cross-legged and wide awake, the scabbard of a long curved knife lying in his lap. The men had set watch before turning in for the night, she remembered vaguely. The surveyor of Rohan was frowning at her, as usual, and so she gathered her things and fled silently into the reeds for her ablutions. 

The fishing line, when she checked it, was tangled on a nearby branch, and Lothiriel set it to rights again, this time with bits of a worm which had presented itself – almost sacrificially – on the wet soil beside the river. Lothiriel looked with distress at the wiggling thing – now missing a good part of its tail end – and covered it with a handful of loosened soil, _I'm sorry._

She picked her way gingerly back to camp, branches and twigs snapping in her wake, dew from the long grass streaking chill against the skin of her arms, and almost stumbled over the sitting Grimund, who glared at her. 

Lothiriel swallowed her half-uttered gasp of surprise, suddenly too aware that a sharpened, gleaming blade rested between them – and that he knew exactly how to use it – and it was a testament, in her opinion, to her skills of self-composure when she managed to nod her greeting and paste an uneasy smile onto her face.

"I can keep watch now, Grimund, if you'd like a little nap. There's about an hour before sunrise, I think."

He faced her, never changing the look of disapproval mixed with suspicion on his face, and grunted.

She took that for a no.

Lothiriel beat a quick retreat to her sleeping bag, placed side-by-side with Eomer's. She tugged some of her blankets from under his prone body – a little roughly, she had to admit – but he had always slept deeply, and did not stir. She envied him, really, the nonchalance and utter contentment of his repose, with his limbs flung akimbo and his long hair – which she had not dared asked him to cut – falling over an utterly serene face; he slept like a child. It was an ability which she had lost and did not know when or how, with the nightmares she could never remember. 

It had always been easier, after a bad dream, to wake with him beside her, his breath stirring her hair, the shadowed planes of his face looming, at times ominously, over her – a sight which has on occasion stirred such mixed sensations as mortification or astonishment, but never fear – and Lothiriel had always felt that if she could only move a little closer, the serenity of his sleep would somehow infuse into her body, and reach even into the utter depths of her dreams. Only then, when she could look sidelong at him, and when he did not turn his arch, half-inquiring gaze back to her – then could she let herself admit that she had grown used him, and to trust him, and really, quite fond of him. Even if he was inscrutable and infuriating, during the day. 

Lothiriel pulled the blanket a little higher on his chest – the man was always warm like an oven and didn't need it, but nevertheless – and went to see about Almonds, steering well clear of Grimund, who sat motionless as a statue bound, waiting for the freeing light of morning.

Her roan mare was on her feet, dozing but standing guard with Aldhelm's horse (Red wind) over Firefoot and Grimund's black-coated stallion (whose name she had not dared ask, given the disposition of his owner). Almonds flicked an ear in greeting, and thrust a cold nose into her hands, roaming the expanse of her palms with questing nostrils for a treat. The grass in a ring around her had been clipped to a stubble to slake her hunger, but Lothiriel obliged her nonetheless, reaching into the saddlebags for a small handful of grain, which was duly presented and received enthusiastically.

Untying her mount from the others, Lothiriel led Almond to the stream for a drink.

Her father had given her this horse, picked from the handful bred that year in the Prince's stables whose lineage all traced back to Meara. It had been love at first sight, though Lothiriel couldn't understand for the life of her why the small, sprightly mare the color of clay dust was given such an unwieldy name as Almaren. Imrahil had thought it a grand name – the green island where the Valar had dwelt under their great lamps before darkness returned to the world - it veritably fell from the tongue, he told her. But Lothiriel, mindful of another name which veritably fell from her father's tongue but was a mouthful hinged awkwardly on everyone else's (her own name), had her horse renamed immediately. Almaren was how it went down on the records of the stables, but that hardly mattered.

Almonds slurped noisily at the surface of the water, the movement of her flanks catching the first lightening of the sky. Lothiriel grabbed a brush out from the saddlebags and set to work. 

By the time she had finished the tips of the drifting clouds had a feathery touch of pink to them, and the black of the sky had lifted to a deep Numenorian blue all across the east, the first of the cascading phenomenon that they call morning here. In so many ways it was just like home, the home that lay so close beyond the mountains. Lothiriel could close her eyes and hear the birds speaking of day, and taste the sea upon the air.

Though here, in land, the air did not tell of ships sailing beyond the salt spray and the calling gulls, beyond the beyond into a sea of night; here in Rohan the air told merely, but solidly and deeply, of the warmth of the earth, the strength of the trees, the swiftness of horses. There was a story here, spun in alternating turns and varying hues by the land and its fair-haired folk; and though the Rohirrim spoke in a tongue she could understand it was the voice of the land – here, now, at the dim light of morning – that spoke clearest, what it meant, to be Rohan. Like its king, Lothiriel had only seen this place, unguarded, un-obscured, at the dim light of dawn. Only then could she glimpse a little of the truth of it, the same way she would glimpse the flashes of tenderness on Eomer's face – from the corner of her eye, a little too early, round in a little sleep.

And how silly to think, that she was queen of this place? 

Lothiriel checked the lines again, and found them full – this morning of silver-mouthed fish with a blood red streak across their back; steelheads, her brothers called them. They were young, smaller than the trout of yester-eve, but they would be tender. 

Leading Almonds back to camp required another handful of oats as incentive, and Lothiriel again made short work of the steelheads as the minutes passed; it was light enough now to see the men huddled in sleep against the ground and the horses – all standing now – in a small conference of their own. She nodded to Grimund – it seemed the most effective way to communicate with him – who bent to wake the fire. Trusting that he could accomplish the task of taking the pan and setting it on the flames, Lothiriel went to scout for berries.

* * *

The weather held high as the sun climbed ever higher, spilling sheets of gold from between the peaks that hugged eastward of their way, lighting on the steel-grey mountains dotted with green, casting a clear sheen upon water running over cool stones, the pure white of clouds thickly stacked. Breakfast sat warmly still in the stomach as they tore through the last league before the opening of the pass. All was well. 

Yet his long time as marshal, riding to and fro in the plains had taught Eomer not to trust that deceptive cheer in the air; for the weather changed quickly over these southern mountains, and warm winds of the sea collided ever with the chill breeze of the plains to produce weather most ill. A clear day more than once ended in rain, and that is only if one's luck held.

He looked back across his shoulder to Aldhelm, who sniffed the air and rubbed his injured knee with a frown, a bad sign if there was any, and sighed. Firefoot never did like the rain; it made him ill-tempered. Indeed, it made Eomer ill-tempered also.

Lothiriel, riding ahead, had dismounted by the thick undergrowth near the foothills and was digging through a high growth of branches and leaves. The men slowed, and watched as she worked a little while, after which she sprang up to reveal to them, relief crossing with pride on her face, two stones marked lightly, but still freshly of a seven pointed star over what looked like the waves of the sea – the sign of Dol Amroth. They had come upon the mouth of the path. 

Clearing the bramble proved arduous, but after a great deal of hacking near the beginning, a path opened clear and smooth behind the thick obscuring walls of green. Lothiriel led them in, the blank look on her face and the tight grip she had on the reins telling him that she hid her nervousness, which did not console him overly much. But Aldhelm, catching Eomer's grim look, gave a blithe, smugly inquiring smile of one who has been much more lost and was thus immune to the anxieties of a traveler; and Grimund, as usual, was dour and silent.

The first part of the path was naturally well-graded, and the four of them ascended for a good while in a watchful silence. They were, after all, crossing the uncrossable mountains, the impenetrable barrier that had separated the Rohirrim from their Numenorian neighbor to the south for so long and inspired so much mistrust and fear between the two nations of Men. These were the unpassable peaks that drove Aragorn deep into the bowels of the mountains on the Path of the Dead – and he was to believe now that these healers of Lossarnach had found a way through?

Suddenly it occurred to Eomer how this was all, rather mad, actually. Agreeing to the business was one thing, but the strange, tight sensation that sat now like a stone in the pit of his stomach as they were lead up the Ered Nimrais of nightmarish legends by a woman whom he barely knew, was something else entirely. Not fear; but the emptiness of the complete unknown – a void readied for any swirl of emotion that might pass their way.

He reflected, a little too late, that he might have done well to have gotten to known her better before entrusting his life, and the life of his men to her. Yet given the fact that they were upon the path already, and that the plague of Rhun was almost upon Faramir, perhaps it was all that he could do to trust this wife of his. 

He hoped it would not be too much to ask, for his men. And for himself as well. 

The sun was climbing near midday now, but the day had not gotten any brighter. The wind had picked up, scattering leaves and loose sand into the air. Clouds rushed in from the south, seemingly coalescing in great roils above their heads. Eomer mentally scanned through his belongings, noting where he had placed his rain-cloak, and hoped these mountains had some caves in them, preferably near the place where they were to stop for the evening, and preferably without an army of dead men in them.

Lothiriel seemed to have noticed the changed in weather also; she craned her slender neck to look up, and back at him. He was relieved to see that the blank mask had gone; she was frowning, but in a displeased way, as if unamused that the skies had decided to be so uncooperative.

"It looks like rain," she called to him, "I'd rather hoped that the weather would hold."

Well, at least she was prepared. 

As for Eomer, he bore no great love of the Ered Nimrais. Last time he had stood high in its frigid hold was at Dunharrow, surveying the meager armies gathered in the Harrowdale. And though they prepared for battle then – an occasion that normally cheered him, or at the very least, lifted his spirits – his thoughts had instead been grim, his half-remembered dreams lightless and bloody. The Dunelings' carving of the Pukel-men, placed with such precision around the path climbing to Dunharrow stood forth in his mind, weathered stone long worn to featureless pillars that guarded the way, exuding a primeval menace. 

He felt no such forced foreboding now; yet he still did not trust the place. Eomer felt that though the ancient malice had been pulled from the mountains, the stones themselves nonetheless had a memory of the old hate of things-that-had-been-Men, and the memory of stones were cold, and they were long. He kept an eye out, and followed the slight figure of Lothiriel, concealed in her hood against the chilling wind, ever farther into the mountains.


	6. Rain Falling

A/N: the usual disclaimer.

* * *

Chapter 6: Rain Falling

A cave was found for the evening as the first drops of rain hit. It opened in a small hole a little above their path and lead into a surprisingly large – if somewhat stuffy – stone chamber; and at its entrance was the carving of a star. Eomer looked around inside the cave, and finding nothing other than a handful of bats and some dust declared it inhabitable. Meanwhile Aldhelm and Grimund set up a little shelter for the horses on the side of the path, tying the corners of the canopy to some rocks and remnant roots that jutted out from between the rocks, and roping the final corner first to some shrubs above the way, and also anchoring it to a large stone at its base.

The winds gushed between the mountains with a mournful howl, and the horses were quickly ushered in to their makeshift stable for the night. Fat, stinging raindrops began to fall, first intermittently then faster, one after another, splattering on top of the cloth with the sound of heavy, ripened grains. Eomer emerged a little dusty to join the three outside to see to the horses. The tightened saddles and heavy bags were removed, placed on the dry ground, and the huffing mounts rubbed down with a cloth and given a quick, forceful once-over with a brush. They then took a little mead from their own flasks (and Lothiriel from Eomer's) and some mint-comfrey balm into their hands and went over the tight muscles, the stiffened necks for a little relief and warmth.

The horses had grazed in the morning, but there had few things edible in the mountains; and all that grew seemed to sprout their sharp sets of thorns, each nastier than the last. Eomer ran his hand through Firefoot's withers, thinking his war-horse was taking to his new role as a pack-mule decently well – and fed him handfuls of oats from the saddlebags. A little bowl-shaped depression on the side of the mountain collected a good pool of rain, and the horses took turns to be watered there.

At last, after their mounts had been seen to and tended, did the riders make their quick way up the slippery edge of rocks and into the closed air of their cave. They had given up on a fire for the evening, as finding enough fuel would have taken them far from camp, into the rain, and likelihood of finding dry wood had become, in lieu of said rain, rather slim. Instead, three helmets and a pan were set a little outside the ledge of the cave, to collect water for drinking; the waybread was passed quietly, and jaws worked in silence as they sat on the cold ground, munching.

The day, already nearing sunset, had darkened further with the storm clouds, and inside the cavern all was covered in shadow. His men, for the lack of a better word, fussed with their belongings for a little while, laying bedrolls, setting out rain-cloaks in preparation for tomorrow, but both were soon failing to suppress their yawns. At Eomer's nod they climbed at once into their respective blankets, and would sleep until they were called for the watch.

To his surprise, Lothiriel did not join them in slumber, but instead walked hesitantly – or was it stiffly? – over to him, by the mouth of the cave. She sat down in the fading, slate-grey light, too far for intimacy yet close enough that he saw the wince that flickered across her face as she settled herself.

"Feeling alright?" he asked.

She looked startled at the question, and blinked.

"Y-yes," she mumbled, gathered into herself again, blushing.

"Not too sore?" He felt it necessary to press the matter, if she won't complain for herself, and was rather surprised when the blushed deepened in her cheeks, her brows furrowing while she turned away from him in embarrassment.

Then Eomer recalled the other instance when he had the occasion to use these same words to her, and felt the smile tug successfully at the corner of his mouth. _Riders of Rohan,_ indeed; he swallowed a chuckle at his own thoughts and was forced to grin rather idiotically at the rain while he contained his laughter, knowing this particular lady would not, herself, be particularly amused.

"Come here," he said, finally.

Lothiriel hesitated where she sat by him, searching his eyes mistrustfully for signs of residual mirth. Heaving an audible sigh, Eomer moved himself to sit cross-legged behind her back, bracing his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened immediately at his touch, and was looking back and about to voice her protest when he dug his thumbs deeply into the tense muscles of her back.

She sputtered a shriek of astonishment and pain, and tried to scramble away.

"Hold still," he said, as one would instruct a particularly ornery horse.

"Ow," she said to him, eloquently.

"It'll hurt worse tomorrow if you don't hold still," he set to work with his hands again while she breathed deeply through her nose like one who has suffered a mortal wound.

First, pulling tension from the shoulders and the neck; then a small rain of open fists along the sides of the spine, to arrive finally, deep in the muscles of the back. He knew well the planes of her body, her wiry, muscled shoulders, her long smooth neck, her tightness and her soft flares. The feeling of her under his hands now was at once sensual and yet comradely.

In the shadows of their bed she was the secret that was a woman, and the mystery of her being had extended to every bit of her body, and the curve of her shoulders was the sweep of the clouds, and the waves of her hair were the waves of the sea. But by day he saw her tromping through her gardens on those well-shaped legs, pulling up weeds and carting buckets of water with her toned arms; he saw raise her hand with the pan in it and bringing it down with resounding a thwack on the head of that doomed fish.

Here, now, in the changing light of dusk she was at once mystery and fact, girl and woman, ignorant and all-knowing.

Eomer took his hands away.

She heaved a deep sigh, moving from the circle of his arms, and he could not tell what had relaxed her more, the work of his hands or their eventual absence. She glanced back at him, a half-look, from the corner of her eyes.

"Would you like – it's just that, I don't know how and –"

He shook his head, though his shoulders ached and his back was, in fact, a little sore; but that was enough temptation for tonight – but he could not tell her that, lest she blush again. Eomer suppressed a smirk.

"I'm fine."

She looked at him skeptically.

"Honest."

A smile, at last.

"Let's watch the rain, then."

A truce.

When Eomer looked over at her, a little later, she had fallen asleep, her head leaning against the side of the cave.

It was raining still when Eomer awoke. Two blurred figures sat motionless on the edge of the cave, half-illuminated by a lackluster dawn. He blinked hard, fighting the morning's battle with sleep. When he glanced up again it was to the soft steps of Lothiriel, who had, as usual, risen before the dawn and cleared up her pallet before he even regained consciousness. She brought him clear rain water, in his helm, and a small hard tack of way bread.

They looked outside as Eomer ate. This third day would be a wet day.

* * *

Rain cloaks, Lothiriel reflected, were more named to keep the peace of mind of yet-dry travelers than to truly keep out the rain. The first few droplets rolled cleanly off the outside of the fabric, but after about an hour or so of walking, they were all soaked through.

The early morning might as well have been twilight. Storm clouds installed themselves like panes of dull steel over the mountain, grey and unyielding, trapping the light of the sun above and leaving them with the lightless symphony of earth and fog.

Lothiriel was well acquainted with the rain. Storms had rolled in daily from the Bay of Balfalas, passing with the wind and shadow over Dol Amroth – one moment drenched and pelted with hail, and the other as calm and cheerful as a painted, sunlit bay. She loved waking to the sound of rain, to look out on what would be a bright morning and find it covered over with shadows, dripping from every leaf and bough. There was something clandestine about those hours, as if she had woken edgewise on time, had opened her eyes to steal a look of the face of the ocean and the mountains that was not meant for her to see. On those occasions – warm and ensconced in the cover of her bed, or standing half-dry half-drenched under an umbrella – she felt as if she stood apart from the day, from the rising and falling of Anar, and observed them not as separate things but the dawn and darkness melding with each other, a perpetual dance. She thought she could understand a little of what it was to live before the rhythm of morning had been, before then sun had been, when all was enfolded in soft shadow and merely the stars and the torches to light their way.

They were higher into the mountains now; the air was cool around one corner but damp, sodden and humid around the bend, especially when they descended into the valleys. In some parts the fog fell in thick swathes across their way until it seemed like they walked on the clouds, which, wondrous as it was, also made it difficult to see ahead. Lothiriel dismounted, and the men followed suit to lead their horses around the winding curves and the narrow passages. Every so often she would recognize a landmark, and scan the outcroppings of rock and the face of the cliffs for the familiar sign of Dol Amroth, and thus far they have all been there.

The most familiar places took on an air of strangeness in the fog, as if by the sheer difficulty to see all clearly there must have been something hidden, something undivulged that went on behind the conscious scrutiny of her two eyes – and she had only walked these paths thrice, in rain but not in fog.

Familiar people, too, took on an air of mystery in the fog. She had too look longer, when she turned her head to see Eomer, to recognize the plane of his cheeks, the set of his shoulders, the scowl on his face. His wet hair fell constantly into his eyes and Eomer brushed it aside, impatiently; he did not like the rain, she noticed, nor did he like the fog; doubtless in the days of his past such tricks of the weather had concealed dangers, held ill memories. And his horse – the astonishingly powerful and ill-tempered thing they called Firefoot – was snorting and skittish in the quiet, doubtless thinking along the same lines as his master.

And he fit ill here, in the bluish light wreathed with glowing fog. Eomer had ever exuded a sense of brightness, shone like the golden grain reaped of the meadow under the fierce sun of Rohan. Moods rolled across him with the swiftness of a summer storm, his movements sprang from stillness, and was gone in a blink to leave only her surprise. The drizzling rain, which to her illuminated all the unfurling greenery that sprang up in the crevices beside their steps and lit the world with green, was suffocating to him, who moved from the downpour to the dazzling, blazing sky with rarely a word in between. Even the stories of their lands were so; hers moving with the slow rhythm of mountains and clouds and stars across the ages, and his flashing shining flanks and sweat-beaded faces like the dance of ashes from a candle.

For so long it had seemed to Lothiriel that she lived to another rhythm than Eomer, than the people of Rohan; the cadences of her home tongue, the occupations of her wandering mind, and even her sympathies with the lightly-falling rain became here an impediment, a barrier, a mountain between them. And she could not break her pace to match to theirs, built differently as they were, for she would falter and retreat, a nocturnal beast – nay, not a beast; a mouse – blinded by the ruthlessly bright morning. It was as if they walked the same roads yet met entirely different ends, mountain and stream; as if they spoke of the same thing and yet resolved an entirely different close, and in the night their lips met but did not touch, and by day they still did not know how to speak to one another.

Those had been her thoughts, tepid and bitter, as she sat upon the dais watching the council debate, as she labored alone in her gardens, while passing folk threw her hooded glances under a blistering sun, as she slept a little away from the warmth of Eomer, under the canopy of their great bed.

But those thoughts seemed to drip from her, in the steady fall of the rain, the patterned fall of her feet upon the path, in the held silence that, she realized for the first time, did not exclude her. It was simply there, as if the mountain had demand of them, _listen_, and thus in a single word cut away the endless bickering of her mind.

If nothing else, they shared the steps, the air, and the quiet itself.

The company walked on in the rain.


	7. Kin and Unkind

A/N: completely awful of me, not to update for so long - but school's been getting in the way of a lot of things. Hope to go somewhere with this during Christmas break, though. Cheers, and thanks so much to all those who reviewed.

**Chapter 7: Kin and Unkind**

The rain tapered to a drizzle around midday, and taking advantage of the fact they paused for another meal of way bread.

Eomer looked about him, though there wasn't anything to see; the thick blanket of fog – or was it cloud? – draped over everything, and it was all he could do to make out the bend in the way a few feet ahead. They were on the ledge of another valley of some sort – a bowl-shaped depression of dense shrubs and high grass that punctured into the rock as the crags had pushed out from it - though its depths was difficult to ascertain, given the lackluster light, and his headache, which had been building since he woke up this morning. Eomer resumed chewing doggedly on the chunk of waybread in his hand, which tasted decidedly worse for having been soaked by the rain. He grimaced, and could not help feeling that he was eating something that someone had regurgitated days ago, and left soaking in their spittle. The horses, having already been fed, slurped noisily around a little pool of rain water.

Eomer had slept late – after rousing Lothiriel and half-carrying her to her pallet beside him – that would explain his headache – for it was a long watch, when the night was divided to three men.

Boredom had set in, compounded by discomfort, and the pressing silence. Matters of business and plans and worries proliferated in his head like the weeds after a storm until he was crammed full of them, filled fit to burst. On the whole, Eomer's mood was no lighter than the drizzling murk that surrounded them.

Yet the girl looked to have no troubles; he noticed.

Lothiriel picked her way carefully but skillfully ahead, uncovering more markers in the most unlikely places – under a stone, in pieces of broken bedrock, behind the climbing ivy of the mountain's side. She was smiling – a quiet, satisfied sort of smile directed at no one in particular – unless it was the ground under them – and which could not have been the result, combined or separate, of the miserable conditions they were in, the food they were eating, or the march that was to go for some days further. Every now and then she even plucked some wild herbs from beside the road to tuck into the saddle bags.

It had been said, Eomer reflected, that the Princes and Princesses of Dol Amroth were of elven blood.

Interestingly enough, this very thought had occurred to him often during the months of their marriage. On most occasions, however, it had arisen in skepticism, for far from showing the grace of the firstborn, his bride was instead clumsy, shy, and awkward – sometimes so stubbornly so that if any elven blood ran through her veins it was indeed disinclined to rush to its mistress's aid in charming the race of Men. Eomer pictured her, hatless, in her drab grey working gown, bent unceremoniously over her garden while the sun baked her brown, and ignoring the amused glances sent her way. He grimaced inwardly.

Now watching her weave gracefully ahead, steady and uncomplaining as any of his soldiers, but not only that – with an air of attunement, of familiarity and skill born of reverence of these stones beneath their feet, of utter contentment, he saw that this was as much in her nature as her awkward gestures, her constant blushing, her frightened stammering. As if a veil had been lifted away, and the blurred and inconstant gestures born of youth and nerves faded, to reveal only a girl, slight, smiling, silent. Indeed there was something fey about her grace, something timeless in the rhythm of her measured steps, something so full of sadness in the slope of her neck.

To Eomer she seemed very young, and very grave, in that youth.

And it was as if something had turned over deep in his chest – something that had been hard and grey and passionless as the rocks they passed, and revealed under it a tenderness, a warmness, that he had not tapped in to in all his hours with Lothiriel.

In retrospect, it had been a great deal to ask of him to marry a stranger, a foreigner – and not one to be chosen at his leisure among the lot, but a particular one. It had been a great deal to ask to marry any particular lady whom he had not grown to know – and Eomer had thought any king should have been equal to the task, as he would have been equal to evaluating the lay of battle plans or the fall's harvest. As for himself, he had gone into it with seven parts of self-sacrifice and three of some strange anticipation that she might resolve to be something like Freolaf, who was tall, buxom, and loud in laughter and in yells, and instead he had gotten – a mouse. And the initial disappointment of his own expectations – and, for Erol's sake, what Gondorian could fit the description! – had never quite receded, or gone away.

And having had to make do with a mouse, he then envisioned a queen springing from the depths of that quiet voice, those widened eyes, fully formed, as it were. Lothiriel was still as much girl as she was woman, however carefully she had tried to mask the former under a veil of compliance. And yet he had been so surprised, so disappointed, to find holes in that mask; he had been disappointed that she did not carry herself with the innate unshakability of someone twice, thrice her age; he had been disappointed by that which was the mere truth. And had been unkind, in his disappointment – cruel he was not, and never had been, yet in his thoughts of her whatever generosity had always been tinged with shades of contempt and irritation, of expectation and disappointment.

Many times he had thought her unfit for queenship. Here his own meanness confronted him – for though his judgment had contained some truth, it was a shallow truth, a callous observation of something too particular, without the comprehension of its underlying form, without the ability to grasp its potential.

Eomer was a blunt man, many times a callous one, and always had been. But such was his nature, and he had always been an astute judge of character – could size up a man at a glance, a few words, a feeling. Yet this woman, this girl, this his wife, had eluded him almost completely.

He had never meant to be unkind, Eomer thought, a little shaken, a little ashamed.

Then again, he had never been married before; never asked to give his complete, unfaltering trust to someone of whom he knew so little – someone who did not battle along his side, someone that he could only know – it seemed – through words, and gestures, and smiles; and he had never set much store by words, gestures, and smiles. And so he had not trusted her, not entirely; the result being that she had hid from him, though not entirely – but they were both effective enough in their respective tasks of discord that speech between them, after six months of marriage, was still a halting task; effective enough that she never stayed to wake with him in the morning.

Then another thought – which discomposed him even more than the last –that perhaps he should apologize.

_That_ he had even less experience of than even his current occupation of self-reflection, and doubt, and guilt. For one did not apologize in the same way to ladies as one did to men; and the whole Eomer's experience with the more pertinent sort was from with the aftermath of breaking of Eowyn's toys when they were children (and one particularly disastrous incidence when he took scissors to her hair while she napped). All he had learned from those occasions were that women, or at least Eowyn, held on to grudges silently, and as persistently as any dog with a bone, and that the sincerest apologies (and they were quite sincere, in the face of her retribution) could not halt the onslaught of her wrath, nursed into cunning. Though his sister, at least, had the temperament to confront him to his face, and to try to knock him down, and dump buckets of pig-slop on his head – so that she was well revenged, in the most substantive ways possible. But Lothiriel –

She would instead turn those fey eyes on him, perhaps in astonishment, and then look down, and stammer out a you're-forgiven and run away, while he felt an unabsolved fool.

Needless to say, his head hurt more, now.

They finished their meal, brushed the crumbs off their rain-cloaks, and went on. Eomer led an ever more disgruntled Firefoot into the thinning air of the Ered Nimrais, and the quiet pressed in so upon his harassed brain, that it came as almost a relief to hear Aldhelm singing under his breath.

A moment later he was joined by – of all people – Grimund; his low bass a counterpoint to Aldhelm's tenor, as they wove the Lay of Helm Hammerhand, who had clobbered with one blow of his mighty fist, and guarded the Deep against all assult, and lived and breathed as full of life as the day he was born until he was discovered one morning garbed all in white, frozen still as a stone.

But even Hammerhand would meet his match in Lothiriel, Eomer thought wryly.

They sang, and wound their way up the mountains.


	8. Wait through the Night

A/N: as you see, a two chapter update. Many thanks again, to the reviewers - I thought I could (in that authorial fashion) make a few responses, which, I have been told, is in keeping with good manners.

**Sarahbarr17:** kudos for sticking with this; I really appreciate it (esp after reading over some beginning parts when I almost put myself to sleep). the whole plague thing - I've always liked those VirusHunter stories, but somehow that seems to fit ill with lotr...

**Just a reader**: haha, I liked your comment about the realism - because there are certain times when I go through this and think to myself, wow, this cannot possibly happen in the real world (for one, people are usually less awkward, or better at speaking through and despite their feelings)- and it is after all, lord of the rings. But I liked the thought of a quieter Lothiriel, mostly because i think finding a voice of one's own - not just in writing, but in every moment of every day - is a huge challenge for anyone growing up, and so she would perhaps think too much and speak too little. Eomer's the opposite, but he's so earnest that it hardly matters. one more reason why I like him.

Julia Aurelia: Thank you for reading. The last bit was a little depressing; really one of these days I hope to write a successful, humorous piece, with tapdancing. and fairies.

**wondereye**: I'm glad you're enjoying it!

**Lady Katanya**: It's really interesting how diff minor characters take on prevailing personalities through fanfic. I really enjoy a lively Lothiriel, myself, but there's also the other - sadder - take of her not being too interested in the marriage in the first place, which i suppose this story falls under. But I promise you, she's really fond of him. really fond.

**Linda**: I'm glad you think the dislike they hold for each other is unchildish! It would not do to have them bickering and having misunderstandings now over little things... right? Oh, to a certain extent I think they're both a little childish, but they are grown, so they can take words to it, and describe it in ways that kids cannot. but they also don't resolve it as easily. that's a problem.

And everyone: I solemnly promise to update. check back in a month or so? cheers. z

**Chapter 8: Wait Through the Night **

A shelf of outcropping rock was the closest thing they had for a shelter as evening rolled in; there might have been caves further into the mountains, but a good length of wood lay under the shelter of rock, doubtless the result of a recent storm, decently dry – and a fire seemed more useful tonight than a cave. Aldhelm set immediately to work with his flint while Eomer split the wood with swings of a small axe and heavy stomps with his booted foot. Lothiriel set up the shelter for the horses – or rather, attempted to help Grimund, who fastened the canopy with more than usual efficiency, as if unwilling to have her make a mess of things.

After a little while, Eomer joined them and they saw to their horses.

Almonds flicked an ear at Lothiriel while she picked pebbles out from under her hoof, then brushed and checked at her coat beneath the saddle for chafe-marks and signs of blistering. Finding none, she turned her attention to the joints, checking for signs of swelling – and when those were absent, a relieved Lothiriel dug out the grain and submitted it to the growing appetite of her still-cheerful mount, and set to work trying to dry Almonds off with a half-wet towel.

A crow of triumph from Aldhelm, as smoke drifted out of the small woodpile. He emerged, indicating that Eomer should go tend the flames, checked on Red Wind, and then took a small knife and went into the mountains to search for better fare. There was little reason to submit to the dubious joys of waybread when there was a fire.

The other two men went under their shelter, took off their things and rubbed themselves dry, while Lothiriel tactfully excused herself - they had passed a little bunch of wild chives on their way here, and she went now – hair dripping and chilled to the bone – to find it.

The whole business took longer than she expected, for the patch was back further on the path than she had guessed, and in addition she was also distracted by some wild mushrooms and a handful of linden leaves along the way. Shadows fell steadily with the rain, and as she pulled up the last bunch of chives it was almost dark out, forcing her to pick a careful way back to camp, one hand trailing the rock wall beside her, and an eye out for the small sputtering flame in the distance. Lothiriel did not like the dark as she had liked the rain, and so she hummed to keep up her mood, a little tune which turned out to be the same barbaric song that Eomer and Grimund and Aldhelm had been singing so forcefully earlier on their way.

When she returned to the campfire it was to the silent, frowning rebuke of the king; but just then Aldhelm also turned up, a wide grin splitting his face, and two small rabbits clutched in his hand. All else was forgotten in an instant.

Eomer and Grimund made to pare up the lean rabbits, sitting side by side, their backs to Lothiriel as she hid behind a small wall of rock and changed out of her wet things. The drip of her hair on the stone turned into a clattering shower as she squeezed the water out of it; and she changed quickly into a deep blue cotton dress, reaching for a pair of dry socks and silently blessing Harah's foresight.

Her dress was a little light for the weather and so she made a quick way to the fire, burning in earnest now. Lothiriel sat down by Eomer, careful to keep out of the way as he worked with his dagger while she set to separating her collection of greens. She plucked the wild purple flowers off the chives, laying them with childlike delight in little rows; the chives themselves would go well with the rabbits. The mushrooms she sniffed, and turned over in her hand, but remembering the warnings of Narian, head gardener of Lossarnach, finally decided not to take any risks and tossed them out of the mouth of the cave. Better to go without than to poison someone.

Night drew like a deep curtain all around while they sat upon their little stage of warmth and light. Around the smoking fire they drew on blankets and extra clothing, for the wind that whistled through the passage of the mountains bore with it the rain and the cool sharp taste ice and snow. They kept close to the fire, for warmth, and to shield it from the flames.

Eomer's hair was falling in his face again, Lothiriel noticed, and he attempted for what seemed to her like the thousandth time to brush it back – but now even more unsuccessfully with the backs of his hands, as his fingertips were bloody with rabbit. Before Lothiriel considered what she was doing she had pulled out a green ribbon from her plaits, and had clambered behind him, drawing her hands through his thick hair to tie it back. She was in the middle of it before she realized she had begun, and while her startled brain froze, paralyzed, her hands moved of their own accord, smoothing his hair back, gathering tufts from around his temples in an age old gesture of tenderness – a gesture exchanged only between herself and Rinhilien, and Morwen, and Ivirniel, and Amrien, friends, playmates, sisters – now, with Eomer, with her husband.

She had never touched him, not of her own volition, not when she could help it.

Eomer held still to her ministrations, though she did not miss the telltale curving of his mouth in the firelight that said he knew she was embarrassed and was amused by it. But when Lothiriel drew away he only nodded at her, indifferent and perfunctory while her bright green ribbon shone in the shadows of his hair.

She wondered if he knew how strange all of it was, to her. Then she wondered why she should find it strange at all. Was this not what a wife did, was supposed to do – tend to her husband?

The other two men kept their eyes fastened on the fire with studious zeal.

When they passed around the small servings of rabbit meat that made such a lovely change to the almost two days of way bread, Lothiriel barely tasted it. And when the little flasks of mead were broken out and exchanged in like fashion, she swallowed her little mouthful of fire, and did not wince.

* * *

She woke in the darkness again, a dead weight on her chest crushing her breath as the terrible dreams had crushed her sleep; but when she pushed it off her and slid from under its cage, she saw it was but Eomer's arm. He had turned in his sleep, and one of his arms had settled around her. It might have been around her since he had lain down.

Lothiriel ran her hands through her own hair, drenched with sweat, and counted to ten. The nightmares never occurred with such frequency, back in Edoras, in her cozy rooms within the Meduseld.

"Riel?"

A mumble from her right and she started at the familiar epithet, long unused; but it was only Eomer, speaking thickly her name through a haze of sleep.

"Hush," she bent down to him, and it was like sinking into a bed of warm embers, and perhaps she was a little tired too, drowsy from the lack of sleep, perhaps it was the sound of her name as she hasn't heard in a year, perhaps it was the knowledge that his hair was still tied back by her ribbon, but Lothiriel bent down to Eomer, and stroking his cheek had the sudden, strangest urge to kiss him on the forehead.

Wakefulness set in at once, and she drew back, away, brushing her fingertips over his half-opened eyelids.

"Hush, back to sleep."

And he was quiet again.

The sounds and smell of rain floated on the cool air as Lothiriel gathered up her pallet and arranged her hair into a semblance of order. She stood, and went to sit by Grimund, who kept watch.

After a little silence she said, "we made good distance yesterday, despite the rain; around noon today we should reach Ciril's Peak, and start making our way down the slopes to the southwest."

He did not even spare her a grunt this morning, but after a few moments, he addressed her – in Westron as she had spoken in Rohirric, if heavily accented, and asked:

"Your sleep is troubled?"

Denials and hedging words ran though her head, but Lothiriel nodded.

Grimund gave a grunt, as of acknowledgment – it was not a derisive grunt, from what Lothiriel could tell.

They were quiet for a little while.

"Sometimes," Grimund said, looking straight at her now, his long blue eyes narrowed in concentration, "sometimes it is hard, to find sleep." he said, and his voice surprisingly low and smooth, hesitating on the words as if he were not sure of their meaning, lingeringly, as if he thought she would not understand, were they spoken too fast.

"What should we do, then?" she asked.

One corner of his mouth lifted, though it was not a smile.

"We wait."

And Lothiriel did understand, but it was little comfort. Nonetheless – she thought as she looked at the pale blue eyes that were now gazing defiantly into the distance, as if daring her to ask questions – nonetheless, it was what they had. And he understood, though he did not trust her and would perhaps never grow to like her; Grimund, of all people – though perhaps it was not such a surprise – he understood. Lothiriel wondered what he had seen, to understand.

She nodded again, and they sat to watch as the faint, distant light of day trickle through the sheets of rain.


	9. Ciril's Peak

A/ N: I know, frankly I'm a little surprised, too: 2 chapters! - but with finals next week I found myself in dire need of some distraction, and this was the only chapter that had been giving me problems, out of the next... four which were written a while ago. Though, by the looks of how this one turned out, the others will have to be altered, some a little more than slightly.

A few edits with this update in Chapters 1 and 2, which had been long and boring; you can take a look if you want.

A few responses, first of all (for the... 5? of you still out there)

**Randomisation**: yeah, I'm starting to like these characters, too - when you've put so many of your own words into their mouths, I guess it's inevitable. I was looking through some earlier chapters yesterday, and Eomer really has a lot of changes of heart, in the beginning, trust and distrust. I hope it didn't throw people off too much (oy, more revision...)

**Elvishkiwi**: Thank you! regarding characterization...well, Lothiriel got one line in the addendum of the book, so I think that's all up to one's discretion, but Eomer does have a pretty set character, which is probably very different than this one. I hope I haven't written him too out of character (though he has more perceptive than usual lately... hum). And Grimund - poor Grimund - I like him very much, also.

**Mauraudersminuspeterarehot**: your name makes me laugh. And thank you, I really appreciate the reviews.

**bookworm2011**: I think I can promise more updates over the Christmas break time...hopefully. And there is only one direction this story is going (right?) so I shouldn't fall too far off the path, plotting wise.

**Lady Katanya**: Oh, the horrors of details and descriptive prose! haha, it always puzzles me because usually when I read a story, I really don't want to hear about how the trees look (and by the number of hits here, most people don't either ;-), but I can't help but write about them. I'm glad you're reading!

Please review?

* * *

**Chapter 9: Ciril's Peak **

Eomer opened his eyes to the misty dawn on their third day in the mountains to the quiet patter of rain. Suddenly nothing seemed so right as to let the cold in, to breathe in the light through his new lungs, and taste the frigid air as of the headiest wine of all elvendom.

Outside the mountain air whipped in his hair, and snapped at his clothes, and shone pristine on every droplet of the rain – and the sight of it all, the smell of it all heightened only that sense of spaciousness, as if a great breath had expanded inside his chest, beyond his body, into space.

Today, his thoughts were solid, like the rocks under his feet; today his judgment would be sound, and today – he would be cheerful today, damn it.

The first two days of a march were the hardest; that's what Theoden had said; the first two days were filled with complaints and worries, anxieties of the future, the mind muddled over with words and plans, half-coherent with wisps of thought, like a dog running after its own tail.

But the third day, on the third day, Theoden had told him – when he had been but a flighty, restless boy of fifteen – the third day all the useless words were stopped.

Eomer put one foot before the other, and smiled.

The morning's climb went quickly. The clouds around the edges of his vision became lighter, and the air grew cold, and thin.

The calm of the storm passed overhead around midday, and suddenly there was no more rain, only a dusting of dry snow on the ground like finest sand. All their cloaks were brought out, to brace against the cold. Every breath was a huff of steam. The horses looked like war engines, their paths marked with a trail – a banner – of smoke.

He caught glimpses of the sky, around corners of peaks, between the bare branches of trees – grey it seemed, at a passing glance; but if he stood and looked he could see waves of steely blue roiling into the pale, to emerge again, darkened with slate; the clouds were in chaos, ever shifting against the backlight of a faraway sun, melding in and out of shadow like great dragons in a dance.

Eomer heard his stomach growl, saw a small stone skip out from under Lothiriel's feet to tumble off the narrow ledge, and followed her to pass under an overhang of rock to emerge above the clouds, above the treeline of Ciril's peak; as high as a person might go, this side of Helm's Deep.

The shadow of the trees fell away, and there was only the white mist beneath them, and the white-capped peak of Ciril above, remote and cool, surrounded by yet more waves of fog and smoke and cloud. His feet stood where the brown-grey mix of stone and soil gave way to expose pure bedrock.

Blue-white casements of ice snaked down the gaps and fissures from the white-covered peak, thick and tall, immobile and white as the guard-towers of Gondor, but diminishing steadily with the height until it was no more than a shiny blackness between the rocks where he was, a faint dusting of snow at his feet.

Eomer had known that they climbed; he felt it for the last three days in each step, but to be as he was now, poised in this halfway shadowy world between two layers of cloud, the air stabbing like crystal daggers into his lungs, to see below him not the earth but a vision, almost, of Arda as it might have been before time's telling – swathed in the white hush of winter, all waiting, silent, for the transformation – to see this, he did not expect.

Or to hear, in the pure silence, a pebble bouncing off the side of a cliff, and feel the cold whisper of wind across his eyes.

Ahead of him Lothiriel had turned around, her features lit by a look of quiet triumph.

Eomer put up a hand; they would take their rest here.

* * *

"Thank you," he said quietly, moving forward until he stood by her, at the ledge. Their horses were a little ways back where Grimund was marking his map of the path they had taken. Aldhelm was, in the meantime, unsuccessfully trying to engage the surveyor in a snowball fight. 

If he let his fancy take him, Eomer could imagine they stood on the cliffs of the sea, strange, silent, white waves swimming some distance under their feet.

"Thank you," he said again.

She shook her head, in a gesture of self-deprecation, it seemed.

"Lothiriel –"

"It's not meant to look this way," she said, sounding crestfallen, "on a clear day you can see the sea from here."

Eomer replied that he would have liked that.

"But you can't see any of it, now, with the storm moving through," she said, frowning fiercely into the mist as if to burn it off with her displeasure, "it's all hidden, in this – "

She gestured with a gloved hand.

The cold would become uncomfortable soon, he thought, and – at the same time – that she looked tired; there were shadows below her eyes, and her shoulders slumped inward under the weight of cloaks and furs. She looked like one who'd had too little sleep.

And with that came the vague conviction that she did not rise early – today and for all months of their marriage – because she disdained his bed, but because she had to, because sleep had been a burden.

Lothiriel was speaking again.

"The fields, there, are flooded with runoff in the spring," her arm swept out in an arc, a whorl in the air, gesturing below them, "and so the farmers of Lamedon wait until the water drains, in late March, to plant the maize and rice.

"Beyond that bend – where the river is not so swift or wide – they grow orchards and gardens," her voice did strange things to his language, Eomer thought, as her words flowed on, "rivals of the ones in our Ithilien of Old – waving fields of glossy green under the spring sun; heavy with fruit and the color and the smell of blooms in late summer.

"And there – past the river – the mountain forests of Lossarnach throw tall shadows over the flowers and vales, filled to its eaves with animals and birdsong. In the fall birch leaves cover the ground, a great golden carpet, and barren branches of the great trees jut into the blue, as if roots and crown were really reversed, and you looked up to the sea and tread upon the edges of the sky."

She was singing it, Eomer realized dimly, singing with the words of the Rohirrim, its sounds suborned to the lyric of the place, the lyric of her vision; the sounds transformed.

"Oh – it's hard to hear now – but Ciril runs right below us from out of the mouth of a great wide cavern. Sometimes rocks fall in with clapping noises, like that of pattering feet, and follow the full rush of the stream all the way down into soil of the fields. It is so beautiful here, on a clear day in the sun. It is not a view you would forget."

And she was trying to tell him something, but her words were all pointed another way, pointed around them, above them, about them, eluding him, slipping past his fingers, curling and melting like smoke.

All he could remember was her saying, in that same voice, in another time, under another view of the sun, _my name is Lothiriel; it's a mouthful, I know…_

"This place is important, to you," he said, in his own tongue, in the language of truth because he could think of no right way of saying it, and no other way to make her see that he was trying to understand, "and, I think it is still very beautiful, like this, covered with clouds."

And he did.

"Yes," she said, after a pause.

"Yes."

And he suddenly realized that she wasn't sure, either, how to stand by him without feeling the heaviness of that lowland air, of how it drags at her limbs; or how to speak, mired by the choking, swirling weight of it, that sat on words and made them mute, that curled around thoughts and made them swallow their own tails. And there was a fear, a horror, in how it could feel almost impossible to speak free after a lifetime of masks, a lifetime of the lowland air – but she tried regardless, he knew; she tried though the weight of the habits and the years were all leveled against her, like a drawn blade.

And he could only hear her sand-soft voice, singing in the language of his fathers.

There was such strength in her – this he saw, as one sees the ocean illuminated by lightning - such strength, under all the masks, hidden by every unspoken word. And there was such an intimacy in that knowledge that he could not help but move closer to her, to lay his arms around her slim shoulders and pull her close, if only to say again,

"Lothiriel, it is very beautiful like this, covered in clouds."


	10. Names and Nightmares

A/N: onward... finally some secrets get told. Thank goodness.

* * *

**Chapter 10: Names and Nightmares**

The fourth day went by in a blur, everything according to plan and strangely uneventful. Lothiriel had only felt the first twinges of vague regret, and then they were already out of the mountains to set up camp at the side of River Ringlo in the humid, warm, inland air. There was a sense of relief, also; for she had not known what trouble they might have met in the mountains, and now there was no cause of worry. Nonetheless, the taste of relief was sharp, suddenly gone as it had arrived; and the tang of regret held long.

She sat the first watch with Eomer, and woke – though not of her own volition – to sit the third with Grimund, who had by now gotten used to her presence, or could ignore it more readily. And in the morning she galloped with these golden-haired strangers deep into the realm of Gondor, past the fields she had known and the roads she had ridden in the days of her youth.

They paused within sight of the city to change, as the guard would surely recognize her, and it would be better if they entered in cleaner clothes than the ones they had on. Lothiriel put aside her travel-stained green gown and drew on the heavy blue-embroidered dress, with the matching slippers that Harah admonished her to bring.

A smile, when she saw that Aldhelm had cleaned his hair and unfurled a small standard of Rohan, which he set atop the long pole that they had used to hold up the horses' canopy. Even Grimund cleaned his face.

The wind brought the smell of the sea, and Lothiriel looked to where the spires of the Seaward Tower and the Princes Castle pierced high into the sky in the distance, and felt – finally felt – her regret burn away in excitement. She could not keep herself from smiling, though she was very, very tired, though the news they bore bode ill.

"Hide the frying pan, if you will, lady," said Eomer with a look of feigned pain, emerging from a nearby copse. He had changed into a fresh green tunic, his few days' growth of beard was trimmed, and he held his ceremonial helm in hand.

She grinned at him.

They galloped into the city, and the guards of the Gate recognized her and gave up a shout – "the King and Queen and Riders of Rohan!"

And on the first day after emerging from the mountains, the sixth since the morning they began their ride the company from Rohan had finally reached Dol Amroth, without pomp, without ceremony, and without warning; and Queen of Rohan or not, Lothiriel was home.

* * *

It was early afternoon of the next day when Eomer emerged from his conference with Aragorn. 

Couriers were dispatched post-haste this morning to the healers of Lamedon and Lossarnach and of Minas Tirith to make what preparations they can, and to see if any such thing had been seen before. They themselves had scoured the records of Dol Amroth for descriptions and records of past sourges, deep into the night, not wanting to waste time. They found little.

Aragorn mused darkly, around a mouthful of his pipe as dawn crept in through the windows, that they might even inquire of the matter with the Haradrim envoy later that week.

And they had yet to hear from Faramir.

Eomer woke after a short nap, alone in the feathered bed that felt too soft to him, and felt for her beside him only to realize it was afternoon.

A quick meal was brought in, the maid sneaking curious glances at him from under eyelids while Eomer polished off the contents of his plate, feeling restless.

He had gone to look on the sea, after a great climb emerging on top of one of the turrets in the Seaward Tower. It was in a mood today – lightning flashed in the dim clouds in a distance, roaring balefully against the sodden, lichen-edged bedrock that held up the tower and the city, smelling distinctly and pungently of salt and fish and other, less savory denizens of its depths.

When he had his fill of that – which did not take long – Eomer had inquired as to the direction of the gardens, and set off in search of his wife.

One look at the place and he knew he had his work cut out for him. The garden, as they called it, was rather a sprawling, winding arboretum of trees and flowers with patches of vegetables and herbs edged between. He wandered in it, lost after the first fifteen minutes, until the overcast sky grew dim again, and had no luck.

"Lost sight of your wife so soon, Eomer king?"

Eomer turned, and beheld a woman melting out of the shadows from beneath an aged oak. Elven blood, he thought, as she came silently into the light; Morwen Steelsheen was said too to have elven blood.

A closer look told of a tan, wide face, around middle-age, lines marking the sides of mouth and eyes – a warm, woflish grey – an aquiline nose met a thin, wide mouth above a strong chin. She was garbed in work clothes, a gown of faded blue reminiscent of the thing Lothiriel wore whenever she was in the gardens.

"Lady," he sketched a bow.

"I am no Lady," the woman's laugh made Eomer felt a little foolish, a little young, "and there's no need for a great king such as yourself to bow to me. You are looking for Riel, yes?"

Many names his wife had among her people – _I dslike nicknames,_ he remembered her saying.

Eomer nodded.

"I am looking for Lothiriel."

"Well, you won't find her here."

Eomer, who had thought she meant to offer information – and who as not used to being spoken like this – was taken aback.

"I see," he said, still looking at her.

She gazed back at him, her head tilted at a curious angle as if she too, were taking his measure.

"Tell me, does she still have nightmares?"

Eomer frowned, "I'm sorry?"

"Nightmares," the woman repeated patiently in Westron, as if to a slow pupil, "bad dreams. She's had them since last year, when Amrien died. Does she still have them now?"

Eomer was at a loss, and heard himself saying, haltingly, "I – I don't know," and upon reflection, "she wakes every day before the dawn."

"As I'd thought," said the woman, frowning, "and she doesn't take anything for it?"

"I'm afraid," Eomer said, confounded by the strange turn of the conversation, "that I still do not understand you – we are speaking of the same Lothiriel, my wife, who was Princess of Dol Amroth?"

Some new understanding dawned in her eyes seemed not altogether pleasant, for she looked at him anew with a sharp lift of her neck, grey eyes flashing narrowly over him in displeasure. But beholding his confusion, she gave a frustrated sigh, and muttered to herself.

"I see I may have spoken too soon," she said, quite calmly, brushing the dirt off her palms, "though I had thought that half a year was plenty of time, if you have treated her well enough."

The thinly-veiled accusation in her words sank in and Eomer felt his temper flare.

"She does well enough, as Queen of Rohan."

And he crushed the small guilt at that half-lie.

Her low laughter – genuine this time – disarmed him.

"I mean no offense," she said, a looking at him with sudden affection, which, after everything, bewildered him even more, "Riel takes things hard, and had always been too slow to speak what bothered her. I had only thought that some time among plain-spoken folk would induce her to open up."

"Say further on this," he demanded, and then, "if you will please."

She gave another smile at his belated courtesy, but this one did not fully reach her eyes.

"She lost a very dear friend, in the war – Amrien. We all lost Amrien, but Riel was closest to her – they were friends almost from birth; you know the type, closer than siblings. And Riel took it very hard, as she was the one who found her, you see."

"Found her?" Eomer echoed, a little hollowly.

"Oh, of course, you _fought_ in the war," the woman said, half to herself, "but Amrien was not a victim of battle, Eomer King; she died of her own hand."

He blinked.

"The poor girl had lost her baby to a fever, and news just came back that her husband was dead – but she was always so strong; she took everything and more. And we thought that in time, she could take this – but we were wrong. Riel was the one who found her."

She sighed, "Stubborn thing – Riel, I mean – blamed herself, naturally, said she should have seen the signs, and without a word to anyone she took herself off into the mountains. Only a few of us knew – and some thought she was dead, or at least gone mad, but after a week she came back – told me straight off she'd thought through it, and got through it, and that's when the nightmares started."

A little silence fell.

"You did not know of this?" said the woman.

Eomer could only shake his head.

"I hope you do not think less of her, for any of it. This sort of thing," she said, looking at him again, sorrow and regret in her face, "it's just as hard to take as battle; harder, for a young girl."

"I know," he said.

Eomer thought of his sister, lying as dead in the chaos of Pelennor, and of splintered banners, grazed with blood, stuck where they were fallen. But his sister was alive; she was married, she was happy – she was pregnant, for Eorl's sake.

"I know," he said, heavily, "I'm going to find Lothiriel, do you know where she is?"

The matron shrugged.

"Her usual place of hiding is in one of the lower nooks of the Seaward Tower."


	11. The Telling

A/N: (sheepishly) nice to see you again, guys...sorry this is so late. Colleges is a rather silly place. I hope it's worth it, at least. 

* * *

**Chapter 11: The Telling**

Lothiriel could not focus on her book. She closed it with a sharp thump and laid it on the floor, which was now strewn with various tomes on history and herb-lore, romances and fairy tales, and even her father's favorite red-leather bound volume of Adunaic verse. She looked outside.

The sea was in a mood today, lashing fiercely against the bedrock, sending the spray even to her windows. Though she sat in one of the lower alcoves in the Tower, it was still built far above the crashing waves – and from up here, the howling of the wind and waves was but an exciting spectacle; up here in the warmth and the safety of the fortress, she could watch the rage of the sea as one might watch a favorite play, to hinge and bask in time of crisis, reliving and thrilling at the feeling of tension, the sudden hitch of fear – but never to be truly touched, never feel the fear as immediate, choking, blinding. 

Amrothos, of all her brothers the closest to her, was in Minas Tirith, wreaking havoc upon their libraries. Erchirion was out to sea, and so Lothiriel had been greeted by a smiling Elphir, his son Alphros – gangly and sunburnt at twelve years old – and her father, solemn and a little too serious, as always. 

She hoped Erchirion was not caught in the storm, as much as he liked such things. It was her favorite type of weather, too, or had been. 

It was almost suppertime, but Lothiriel did not stir. A gap had opened behind the clouds, far west above the sea and the sky lightened ever so slightly as the dying rays of the sun threw a golden gleam – and pink, and deepest purple – upon the slivers of the clouds, while all before them was stormy black. The faintest glimmer of water shone far in the west where the sun set in a clear sky over the sea. She waited for the dark to set in. Perhaps there will be stars tonight, after all.

"Lothiriel?"

It was Eomer. He stuck his head in. 

She wasn't sure who was more surprised, between the two of them, and made to rise from her alcove. 

He put out a hand.

"It's alright. May I come in?"

She concealed her look of surprise, stacked her books to one side as he sat down by her; he looked embarrassed, she saw – as if he didn't know where to place his eyes.

"Of course."

He sat down, his wide shoulder an ill fit in the cramped space of the little alcove. Then, suddenly, pressing his nose to the window-glass, he pointed, and exclaimed for her to look at the sunset. Lothiriel laughed, her mood lighter than it had been all day, and watched with him the as the last bits of light bounced between the waves and the clouds, and then fell into the sea. 

A flare caught in the towers near them, sizzling into life like anar, and then another, a great sphere blazing, engulfed in flames. From the base, the ring of orange flame buds flared out in an arch; they joined, welded at the uppermost point.

"The Lamps of the Tower," she explained, to his appreciative murmur, "they can be seen by the ships for miles, that mariners stay well away. The Harbor's lights are further into the Bay, to the south."

She marked his quietness, the small signs of tension in the way he sat and tapped his hands against his arms, as evidence of something troubling him that he didn't know how to put into words. Where he normally slouched and sat himself in the most comfortable way possible, now he was tense, strung tight as a bowstring, the muscles in his arms working along with the passing thoughts of his mind. She thought that his thoughts could not be pleasant.

She caught him looking at her again, out of the corner of his eye.

"Was there something you wanted to speak to me about, Milord?"

He frowned, as if her question had displeased him somehow, and said, looking at her steadily now, "I would prefer if you were to call me by my given name, when we are alone – or really anywhere, for that matter."

Whatever topic of conversation she had expected him to broach, poised as he was with such tension, it was not this. But then, she thought, perhaps only this could make him look so uncomfortable.

"Yes, Milord," she said.

He gave her a pointed, disgruntled glare – with half the vehemence of his usual – and she realized he was trying to be gentle with her. The corner of her mouth kicked up.

"Eomer."

And realized she had almost never called him by his given name.

It was a revelation, to speak a word that everyone else speaks but she – and there his name sat, roundly and solidly, light as air and warm as the winter's hearth against her throat. 

And it was not altogether bad.

The other corner of her mouth lifted, and she smiled, a little amused that so small a thing could make such a difference to her, and had required such deliberate effort from him. 

"You spoke late into the night with King Elessar. What did he say?"

But the question did not put him at his ease again, as she had intended. Instead he leaned forward, the notch in his brow deeper now, all restlessness and unspent action.

"Aragorn knows little of the lands East of Rhun, and what little lore he has sounds less than hopeful for us."

"And what does that say?" she asked, calmly, curiously – though a part of her mind noted that it was the first time when he thought fit to let her into his counsel about matters of the state.

"There is the same myth, of course, of how the world began in darkness and ends in darkness. But the one prevailing prophecy of their songs says that when the spirits of the deep forest are woken by the encroachment of Men upon their land, they, in fury will release poisons into the air and the waters. It's a sort of purge at the end of time, to restore the balance of the world."

"Angry spirits?" Lothiriel couldn't help the shade of disbelief that crept into her tone.

"Not exactly something to take a sword to," he agreed.

"But they can't be real, can they?"

He gave her a rueful glance, "For a long time we thought the Galadhrim just to be that sort of fey, malignant spirit, since they took so ill to our logging and strange things were often seen in the forests. Now I don't mean there must be some renegade Eldar living beyond the Rhun - far from it. It would almost be easier, that way."

"The healers can't prepare against something so entirely unknown," she said, sitting back with a frown and wincing as the stiff muscles of her back pulled tight, "they can't make an antidote to myths of the end of the world."

"Too true."

She caught a long suffering note in his voice.

"Is statecraft always so frightening, Eomer?"

"Quite," his face lifted in a wry smile at her words, "in most cases I find that it alternates between fear and boredom."

That made her laugh, but as the tightness settled itself again over his features, she felt compelled to say – touching his sleeve lightly while he looked out the window – "I _will _help you, of course, with anything. You have only to ask. Though there isn't much I can do; I know the healers well, that is all but I …"

He cut her short, bringing a large palm to cover her hand, holding it to him, against him, in such a gesture of trust that she would have fallen silent even had he not turned those flashing mahogany-gold eyes upon her, and said, in that bell-deep voice of his, in perfect sincerity, 

"And you have my thanks, for all of it."

It was as if she were someone else entirely; someone whose company he would seek out, whose counsel he valued. Though Lothiriel had never felt bereft without his good opinion, the strange and sudden acknowledgment washed over her like a sensation of falling; an admiration she had never sought but only realized – now, at its attainment – how deeply she desired it. It was as if, in an attempt to gauge him, in casting a side long glance she had instead emerged here, in this alcove, her hand held to him in an age-worn gesture of tenderness. As if they played two halves of a legend, the rhythm of tales taking over despite themselves, like the inexorable turns of the tide. 

His hair gleamed at her in the flickering darkness, swift shadows running through it, and she could recall the feel of it under her fingers not so many nights ago when she had tied it back for him. Now, at this new touch, his hand upon hers, the same white paralysis took over her mind, but it was worse, worse than before when it was only a passing awkward gesture, a fleeting tenderness. This new sensation was much stronger, a terror and a delight, some sleeping recess of her mind that had now finally woken. So Lothiriel pressed her back firmly against the window panes, while this ancient, desperate longing swept through her, violent as a storm, in which she was but the hapless vessel.

For a second she could not, for the life of her, draw breath.

He was looking out of the window again, humming a little tune, his thumb running lightly over the top of her hand, the warmth of it riding in little waves up her arm, white hot and glowing. 

For Valars' sake; she thought, coughing to cover up the gasp of air returning to her lungs, for Valar's sake – he was her husband. Better than anything she knew the movement of his body against hers in the night, the burning palms of his hands, the calloused fingers, the sun-bronzed backs traced with veins. She knew his touch better than she knew his mind, and while the former had always been stimulating – electrifying – to say the least, there was no reason why she should be transfixed now, mesmerized, by the simple movement of his thumb over her skin. 

Breathe, Riel. Get a grip.

"I had hoped to speak to you about something else, as well," he said, in that new, gentle way of his which disconcerted her beyond any shouting.

Lothiriel made a noise of inquiry, hoping he would attribute its unintelligibility to vague interest than her current, incapacitated mental state.

"Do you rise early every morning in order to avoid my bed?"

It was entirely too ridiculous. Here she was, deprived completely of her ability to think by the merest touch of his hand, and he could sit there, close enough to be oblivious, and ask her nonchalantly whether the thought of his bedding her was so awful that it sent her scrambling at the sight of him for the entirety of last year. Lothiriel suspected that he knew his abilities well enough that he did not doubt her answer – but why, then would he ask such a question?

She burst out laughing; at his bemused frown she only pulled her hand back from him and used it to hide her flushing face against the cool glass of the window.

"Could you really have doubts, Eomer?" She asked, and felt herself turning bright red, "because I assure you - " and she looked hard for words here, and could find nothing but – "that it is entirely pleasant; your bed, that is."

But if she thought he would be assuaged by this, she was disappointed. For he leaned in – too close for comfort – and with perfect seriousness, said again, "then why do you leave?"

And she realized he did not want compliments, or a blush, or banter. 

No, he wanted that next thing – her secrets, the truth, the little frailties and failures and humiliations that she held closer to her consciousness than even her body. And here he was, totally aware of his effect on her, full of means and ways and light, wanting to lift the damp, cool covers of her mind and open her secrets to the sun. 

Suddenly she resented it – the violation, the rendering of pain into words that must necessarily make them petty; and the fear that perhaps they were petty, and silly, and entirely stupid in the first place. 

He must have seen the struggle mirrored on her face, because he pressed his advantage, his breath falling soft on her, stirring the skin of her face.

"Tell me, please."

She sighed.

It was too easy, to lie. She could imagine how easily words – pale, flat words - could render even the terrifying, breathless dreams into the perfunctory, clinical processes of the mind – boring as yesterday's menu, or today's chores. 

She imagined herself, repeating those pale words to him, and imagined, in return, his flashing eyes, because as little as Eomer might know her, little love as he might hold for her, his nature was one against which subterfuge, especially the subterfuge of words, had no power. She imagined his roar that would echo in this little alcove, if she should lie to him now. 

"You don't need to hide from me, Lothiriel," he said, very quietly, and then she had no other choice.

* * *

Perhaps it was the noise of the sea to which he was still a stranger; perhaps it was because he had slept until late afternoon the day before, but when Lothiriel sat bolt upright in the pre-dawn hours Eomer did not sleep on, insensible as usual. Instead, his eyes snapped open, and he stiffened, that old rush of battle-ready adrenaline flowing through his veins. 

Everything was silent – he heard nothing – and the day was yet dark. But the cool morn air stirred at his throat and his chest, where there had been warmth before, and moving his gaze he saw the shape of Lothiriel sitting beside him, a spot of light from outside illuminating the planes of her back. 

He watched, without moving, as she ran her hands through her hair, and then clenched them on the blankets around her; he saw the deep breaths that moved in her shoulders, heard her soft counting from one to ten. He lay still, as the first sob choked itself and died against her throat, and she clasped a hand against her mouth, her anguish strained and contained behind her hand, until all grew calm again. 

And she ran another hand through her hair, and tossed off the blankets. 

Eomer forced himself to close his eyes, and breathe normally.

An eternity passed before he heard her lay down upon the bed, and draw the blankets sliding over herself. But he felt it when she turned her face to his chest, and felt her soft arms go about his waist, and breathed in the perfume of her hair while her trembling grew still against him, and her breaths turned calm and deep.

It would be enough. 

For now, it was enough.

* * *

**ElvishKiwi**: 2 reviews! You make me happy. I had a lot of fun writing chapter 9 (and a lot of studying did NOT get done), and couldn't sleep for a couple of hours after it – mostly getting my hiking-prone friend to tell me about what happens on mountain-climbing trips and trying to verify if I've gotten things right. They're smart people; they'll figure each other out, eventually, right? 

**Mauraudersminuspeterarehot**: can you just see him tromping in and say something like, that's all in the past, get over yourself already and help me with this stupid plague business! 

**Lorena**: Thank you for reviewing! I hope there might be forthcoming conversations with…mysterious lady in the garden… whose name will soon be determined. 

**Randomisation**: Lothiriel's got some baggage, just different baggage compared to Eomer's. I've always thought that might be difficult for her, especially since he did so much during the war – and much of it was recorded – that she might feel a need to meet to the same standard. Horrah for inferiority issues (she was, after all, a footnote in the annals of Middle-earth history)? Maybe I'll write in some martial arts/ archery/ weapons training for her, just for some balancing action…

**Bookworm2011**: Thanks again for sticking with this! Did I mention I love reviews? And reviewers? 

**Angaloth**: Yeah, Eomer is starting to respect her a bit more – his whole take on her before was (now that I look back on it) really rather unflattering (some of the writing was kinda disjointed too), and while she may never be spunky and lighthearted and a complete social success, he's got enough charm for both of them that she can just settle into her quietness. That would be a nice dynamic, I think. 

**MookieMoodoo**: I think Tolkien's really great because what he's written is complete in itself, but random names just crop up in all the texts that demand some sort of attention. So obviously he didn't have in mind some world-breaking love story for Eomer and Lothiriel, like the one for Beren and Luthien – or maybe he did and just didn't get around to it. I'm glad you like the 'quiet' Lothiriel (haha); I think she just enjoys being complicated to a certain extent – so everyone must have patience. Thanks for reading! 


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